‘The recent arrival of Auchan drove us out of Yekaterinburg’s Top 5 food retailers list; yet we are hoping to climb back this year by dint of outdoing one of the local players,’ Alexander Raisikh, CEO of Zvezdniy supermarket chain, announced at the conference devoted to regional trade.

‘The presence of federal and transnational players on the local market has definitely been affecting the current status quo. We’ve lost 2% to 3% of our profits because of Auchan, for example,’ Mr. Raisikh said.

‘As for Ramstore, is does not appear to influence things greatly. I believe a lot of local food retailers are offering better or more interesting services to their customers. We’ve got a much smaller shop in the same district, but there has been no decrease in profits whatsoever,’ he noted.